KIRKUS REVIEW

A picture book chronicles a day with
a boy and his grandfather full of fun and minor mishaps.

Joey
and his grandfather happily spend an active day together inside Grandpa’s house
and at various places nearby. They feed the fish, read together, cook pancakes,
ride in Grandpa’s truck to the grocery store, eat lunch, and go fishing. Each
activity takes place with “one small problem.” Over and over again, Grandpa
manages to lose his glasses (“When Joey wanted Grandpa to read a book with him,
Grandpa’s glasses were missing. Grandpa looked under the couch and under the
cushions and under the rug, but he couldn’t find his glasses”). He loses them in the fish tank, the pancake batter, the
grocery bag, and the freezer. Joey manages to find them every time, and Grandpa
repeats some variation of “Well, get a load of that...How did they get in
there?” Sharp-eyed Joey, always one step ahead of his absentminded grandfather,
even proposes a solution—putting a string on the glasses and tying it to
Grandpa’s pocket. But in the final panel, foolish Grandpa, after fishing with
Joey at a lake, has his glasses with him but leaves his boots on the dock. The
relationship of grandfather and grandson is heartwarming and charming, as is
the concept of the youngster coming to the aid of his relative by finding his
constantly misplaced glasses and coming up with a remedy. As a read-aloud story,
the book by author Nichvolodoff (Cleo’s
Treasure Hunt, 2016, etc.) and illustrator Paradero possesses tremendous
potential for the young reader to participate by discovering the glasses in all
the amusing spots and playing along. Unfortunately, both the volume’s timing
and the illustrations work against the reader. For a young child to understand
the problem and discover the glasses, the images need to accentuate the
spectacles and allow the reader to see clearly what is going to happen to them.
In most of the illustrations, the glasses are not prominent enough for a child
to identify them. The reader only discovers after the fact that the glasses
fall into the fish tank and the pancake batter. These situations offer great
comic possibilities for a young child to witness these calamities about to
occur and point them out.

An appealing read-aloud tale about a
duo’s adventures that would benefit from enhanced illustrations and timing.

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